The present invention relates to an apparatus of removing the pulp from the peel and albedo of a citrus type fruit, and more specifically to an apparatus where the separation is achieved without heating the fruit.
The conventional method for peeling oranges includes the steps of aging the fruit for about three or four days, cleaning and sizing the fruit, coring, peeling by a process which includes heating the fruit, then immersing the peeled orange in a lye bath to remove the albedo and finally sectioning the pulp by sensing the membranes of the fruit and cutting around the membrane. One of these types of machines is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,117,604 (Polk, Jan. 14, 1974).
Other methods of peeling and processing citrus fruit are found in the following representative patents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,139,651 (Sekiguchi); 2,930,706 (Moulton); 3,396,040 (Cohen); 3,592,664 (Verlin); and Re-27,646 (Cohen).
The disadvantage with all the methods described in those patents is that they use a hot peeling technique, which results in undesirable taste characteristics.